£65K bid for 'cloth cap Vettriano'

Published on Sunday 29 May 2005 01:42

ONLY a few years ago he was cleaning windows for a living, painting in the evening and scrabbling down the back of his sofa in search of loose change to buy bread.

But now Alexander Millar, dubbed the new Jack Vettriano, is on the verge of emulating the success of the artist that inspired him with a six-figure sale of his tribute to the famous painting The Singing Butler.

The self-taught artist, who like Vettriano grew up in a mining village in Scotland, said he has been offered more than 65,000 for his painting A Jig for Jack.

Millar said he painted the piece to celebrate Vettriano's phenomenal achievement in opening up the arts scene for commercial artists.

In April last year, The Singing Butler sold at Sotheby's for a record price of 744,800. It was the highest selling painting by a living Scottish artist.

Millar, who is based in Northumberland but grew up in the village of Springside, outside Kilmarnock, says he will only sell his tribute when he receives a bid in excess of 100,000.

He said: "I painted it just after he smashed the record. Jack has done a lot for commercial artists like me. In the past you had to die before you ever made any money, but now it is possible to earn really big money. I've had a few substantial offers."

Millar has been painting for 20 years. But in the past two years his humorous, nostalgic depictions of working class men with flat caps and woodbines have caught the imagination of the international art market in the same way that Vettriano's film-noirish scenes did in the 1990s.

Earlier this month he was named runner-up in the Best Selling Up and Coming Artist of the year by The Fine Art Trade Guild. The award follows a phenomenal 18 months for Millar in which prices for his paintings have more than tripled. His publishers, Washington Green, say that he is one of their bestsellers, and his prints, which now fetch up to 500, are going well on the world market.

Moreover, gallery owners in the UK say that demand for Millar's work is such that it is "almost impossible" to get an original. There are reports of queues outside galleries, shows selling out within minutes, and fans travelling thousands of miles to secure an original.

Collectors of Millar's work now include Sting and former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant. But he also has a huge following in the States where his Chaplinesque characters, described by him as "gadgies", resonate with the old industrial communities on the East Coast.

Millar said: "It's crazy. I am a window cleaner and all of a sudden, because I started painting these old guys, I now get rock stars coming to my house wanting to know me. It's almost like a monster going out of control."

The turning point for Millar came four years ago when, following his father's death, his painting took on a different light. Millar said he had always painted figures, but in a landscape. One day, while experimenting with white paint, he went over the background and the figures just "stood out". Since then his popularity has exploded.

Critics say the immediate appeal of his work is nostalgia. Like Vettriano, he paints an idealised vision of the past.

Scotland On Sunday art critic Iain Gale said: "He is a better artist than Vettriano. His draughtsmanship is better and the drawings are quite spirited. I think he is influenced by Walter Geikie and Joseph Herman.

"I quite like his sketches. They are little social commentaries and that is following in the great Scottish tradition. He is better in his rough studies than he is in his paintings.

"They look exactly like the sort of thing that was being produced in Glasgow in the 1950s by the Glasgow art club."

David Johnston, owner of the Park Gallery in Glasgow which sells Millar's work, said that his prints now go for 500, while in the past 18 months his originals have grown in price from 3,000 to 8,000 and are steadily rising.

Johnston said: "His popularity is unbelievable. I think people are attracted to the humour and nostalgia of the Scots and Geordies that Alex portrays. People are reminded of their parents and grandparents working in industry. Nobody fails to love his work.

"Last November, we sold 40 pieces in three hours and the paintings were reaching 8,000. But on the secondary market his work is selling for 10,000 to 15,000. I can't get the originals now there is such a long waiting list. The demand is so great it is almost impossible to meet it. I've been waiting nearly two years for a commission."